OUR BEST FRIENDS

Tag: humping

These days they seem to be shooting lower — if indeed it’s possible for them to go any lower — and focusing more and more on celebrity dogs.

It’s ridiculous, but understandable: Dogs, unlike celebrities, have to go out. Dogs, unlike celebrities, don’t object to photos being taken of them in an ungroomed state. Dogs, unlike celebrities, don’t file lawsuits.

But the even bigger reason is this: Dogs are more instinctual and spontaneous than most humans, and thus are more likely to do something outrageous — or at least something that the photographer sees as outrageous.

That, when you come right down to it, is what a paparazzo is after.

So when Amanda Seyfried’s dog, Finn, appeared to be humping another dog at the park, the image was captured and published on numerous tabloid websites (and now, for scholarly discussion purposes, on this one.)

On TMZ.com, the photo was under the headline: “AMANDA SEYFRIED’S DOG RAPES OTHER DOG.”

(Maybe dogs should file lawsuits.)

When a dog humps another dog, it’s generally not news, just as it’s generally not news — not even tabloid news — when a dog poops, pees, drools or scratches him or herself.

True enough, Anne Hathaway made the news (or at least the Huffington Post) when her dog pooped — but that was because the actress promptly packed up the poopage and placed it on the windshield of the car belonging to the photographer who was following her and Esmerelda as they went for what was supposed to be a leisurely walk.

Hathaway may have felt she’d gotten vengeance, but she actually fell straight into the trap.

A celebrity doing something outlandish makes for a much better photo than a celebrity just walking down the street.

That’s the biggest reason celebrities are stalked with cameras — either because they have just done something outrageous or embarassing, or in hopes they will, once spotting the photographer, do something outrageous or embarassing.

I, for the record, have great respect for photographers. Some of my best friends are photographers. But photographers whose sole purpose is to track down, follow and provoke celebrities are even worse than humping dogs. They are annoyances, hard to shake off and best avoided, getting their kicks, and paychecks, by exploiting other people’s fame and America’s seemingly incurable addiction to celebrity.

As the paparazzi becomes more puparazzi (or pawparazzi, your choice), a celebrity’s dog, it seems, is falling under the same category as a celebrity’s unfashionable sweat pants, overflowing bikini/Speedo, or botched plastic surgery — fair game.

And while I have no major problem with them aiming their cameras at celebrity dogs out in public, the photographers and those who publish their images ought to keep in mind that, when it comes to dogs, pooping, peeing and humping are mostly natural behaviors that – while maybe one requires some slight correcting — don’t call for felony charges or 30 days in rehab.

One of the foibles of humans is that we like to build people up and then see them get knocked down — enjoying both their rise to glory and their fall from it.

We do it all the time with members of our own species, and especially with celebrities.

The base of a statue on a pedestrian bridge in Berkeley has been decorated with medallions of dogs doing what they do best — playing, running, sniffing and more.

It’s the “more” that seems to be bothering some people.

Artist Scott Donahue of Emeryville, Calif., was paid $196,000 by the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission to create two large statues, one at each end of the bridge. At the base of one, he attached medallions showing humans engaged in human activities, such as kite flying. At the base of the other, he attached medallions of dogs doing the things dog do.

Those, as you may have guessed by now, include dogs-a-pooping and dogs-a-humping.

Some citizens are grumbling about the taxpayer-funded artwork, the designs for which didn’t reflect the objectionable — to some — dog activities, according to a Fox News report.

Berkeley civic arts coordinator Mary Ann Marker doesn’t seem fazed.

“You know they’re only 5 inches – the piece is 28 feet,” she says. “They’re just part of the bottom of the base as extra decoration. They are by no means the main thrust of the piece.”

Donahue says he stands by his work — the, uh, thrust of which is ”celebrating life’s vitality.”

“The sculpture is on the one hand serious — you’ve got these big sculptures — and on the other hand it’s playful. It’s both serious and playful simultaneously.”

The pedestrian bridge spans Interstate 80 in Berkeley, and the artwork — about 1.5 percent of the bridge’s total cost — was part of what taxpayers paid for its construction.